affaan-m/ECC · error

candidate configuration exceeds 1 MiB

Error message

candidate configuration exceeds 1 MiB

What it means

`CandidateSpec::new` serializes the candidate configuration to its canonical JSON form and enforces a hard 1 MiB (1024*1024 bytes) limit on the serialized string. Oversized configurations are rejected eagerly because they would bloat persisted artifacts and content-addressed IDs. The error means your `config` JSON value, once canonicalized, exceeds that size budget.

Solutions

1. Shrink the config: remove bulky fields and reference external artifacts by path instead of inlining content (use trace_refs/evidence_refs for references).
2. Split the candidate into multiple smaller CandidateSpecs if the content genuinely needs to be large.
3. Compress or deduplicate repeated structures in the config before passing it in.
4. If the limit is too restrictive for your legitimate workload, raise the bound in `harness_eval.rs` deliberately (a library change, not a caller workaround).

Example fix

// before
let config = serde_json::json!({
    "fixtures": large_fixture_json, // >1 MiB inlined
});
let spec = CandidateSpec::new(config, trace_refs, evidence_refs)?;

// after
let config = serde_json::json!({
    "fixtures_ref": "artifacts/fixtures.json", // external reference
});
let spec = CandidateSpec::new(config, trace_refs, evidence_refs)?;

fn config_size_ok(config: &serde_json::Value) -> bool {
    let canonical = serde_json::to_string(&canonicalize(config.clone())).unwrap_or_default();
    canonical.len() <= 1024 * 1024
}

match CandidateSpec::new(config, trace_refs, evidence_refs) {
    Ok(s) => s,
    Err(e) if e.to_string().contains("exceeds 1 MiB") => {
        eprintln!("Config too large; move bulky data to external refs");
        CandidateSpec::new(shrink_config(config), trace_refs, evidence_refs)?
    }
    Err(e) => return Err(e),
}

When it happens

Trigger: Constructing a `CandidateSpec::new(config, trace_refs, evidence_refs)` whose `config` `serde_json::Value` canonicalizes to more than 1,048,576 bytes.

Common situations: Embedding large blobs (test fixtures, logs, datasets, base64 assets) directly in the candidate config instead of external file references; accidentally serializing an entire database dump or full environment object; accumulating many nested overrides from merged config layers.

Understand the failure class

Background: "File too large" / "file size exceeds limit" errors: why libraries cap file sizes and how to fix them — this error's family across 46 libraries.

Related errors

• application config exceeds local size limit
• input_artifacts must be a list of local paths
• Invalid at : expected a JSON object
• missing orchestration template variable(s)
• orchestration template

AI-assisted analysis of affaan-m/ECC@8321021c54 (2026-09-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/4ea6f68f8a57e405. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at ecc2/src/harness_eval.rs:198

use serde_json::Value;
use sha2::{Digest, Sha256};
use std::collections::{BTreeMap, BTreeSet};

#[derive(Debug, Clone, PartialEq, Serialize, Deserialize)]
pub struct CandidateSpec {
    pub id: String,
    pub canonical_config: String,
    pub trace_refs: Vec<String>,
    pub evidence_refs: Vec<String>,
}

impl CandidateSpec {
    pub fn new(config: Value, trace_refs: Vec<String>, evidence_refs: Vec<String>) -> Result<Self> {
        let trace_refs = normalize_refs("trace", trace_refs)?;
        let evidence_refs = normalize_refs("evidence", evidence_refs)?;
        let canonical_config = serde_json::to_string(&canonicalize(config))?;
        if canonical_config.len() > 1024 * 1024 {
            bail!("candidate configuration exceeds 1 MiB");
        }
        let artifact = serde_json::to_string(&CanonicalCandidateArtifact {
            config: serde_json::from_str(&canonical_config)?,
            trace_refs: &trace_refs,
            evidence_refs: &evidence_refs,
        })?;
        let id = sha256_hex(artifact.as_bytes());
        Ok(Self {
            id,
            canonical_config,
            trace_refs,
            evidence_refs,
        })
    }

    pub fn verify_integrity(&self) -> Result<()> {
        self.verify_persisted_id(&self.id)?;
        if self.id != self.id_for_v2()? {

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